Say what you try. Play it together.

One simple turn

You have 2 actions. Spend 1 to attack, move, use a potion, rescue a friend, or try a creative action. Powers show their own action and Power costs. You may attack twice. End your turn when you are done.

Power fuels class powers and refills after combat. HP measures how long you can stay in the fight; it returns when you recover somewhere safe.

When the outcome is uncertain

Agree on your intent and what success, a cost, and a setback mean. Strength handles force and endurance; Agility handles movement and finesse; Wisdom handles insight, knowledge, magic and persuasion. The game rolls a d20 and adds the displayed modifier.

Difficulty: Easy 10 · Normal 13 · Hard 16 · Epic 19. Meeting the target succeeds. Beating it by 5, or a natural 20, is a triumph. Missing by 1–4 means progress with the agreed cost. A worse result, or a natural 1, brings the agreed setback.

Advantage rolls two dice and keeps the higher; disadvantage keeps the lower. A friend’s help grants advantage or cancels disadvantage during exploration. Try as a group; repeating the same attempt needs a changed approach or situation. Safe, obvious actions need no roll.

A progress clock is a shared goal: triumph adds 2 progress, success or mixed adds 1, setback adds 1 danger. Mixed adds danger only if that was the agreed cost.

Attacks, defense and space

Roll a d20 plus Strength for melee, Agility for ranged weapons, or Wisdom for a spell weapon. Meet Defense to hit. A natural 1 misses; a natural 20 hits and uses the maximum weapon dice, plus the normal modifier. A 1d8 + 2 critical hit deals 10.

Melee reaches an adjacent enemy; ranged weapons reach 10 tiles and spell weapons reach 8. Powers may have their own range. Cover helps against ranged and spell attacks unless a power ignores it. Movement uses clear tiles and costs 1 action; forest and hills cost extra movement. Slowed removes 2 movement tiles; being held prevents walking.

Defense comes from your class and level, plus one equipped armor item. Carried armor does nothing. Equip one weapon and one armor between encounters; the equipped weapon determines the attack type and damage.

Get your friends back up

At 0 HP you are down and skip your turn. Healing gets you back up. Any adjacent friend can spend 1 action to rescue you at a quarter of your maximum HP, rounded up. No healer class is required. Soul Caged prevents healing until it ends or is removed; temporary conditions still expire on skipped turns.

If everyone falls, choose a setback—escape, capture, or a lost opportunity—and continue the story. The GM records a safe place and consequence, then restores HP and Power. Death is a deliberate story decision, not an automatic result of reaching 0 HP.

Grow together

Story milestones advance the whole party. Late joiners start at the party level. Better treasure stays equipped when a baseline weapon upgrade would be weaker. The GM can choose XP advancement instead.

Build encounters for 2–6 active heroes. Start with one common enemy per hero or one boss. Boss HP and actions match the selected roster, and a boss may make only one damaging attempt against each hero per turn. The game fixes these values when the encounter begins.

Fate wagers are exceptional gambles, saved with explicit stakes. A natural 20 has a 5% chance normally, 9.75% with advantage, and 0.25% with disadvantage. Ordinary creativity uses shared checks.